Last week, we asked readers of the Spartanburg Spark to nominate their favorite musicians, albums and venues for the first-ever Best Music of 2008 reader poll. And nominate you did! Now comes the fun part: Voting! Visit SpartanburgSpark.com to vote for your favorite performer in the following categories: Best Local Rock/Metal Band Best Local Folk/Bluegrass/Country Band Best Local Hip-Hop/Rap Group or Performer Best Local Jazz or Experimental Band Best Local Singer/Songwriter or Solo Performer Best Local Album of 2008 (Any Genre) Best Venue for Live Music (Any Genre) Voting ends Friday, Jan. 2, 2009.

Have an opinion that simply MUST BE HEARD by others in the Spartanburg community? Tired of your thoughts and views being overlooked by the local media? Consider submitting a Reader Soapbox to the Spartanburg Spark. What's a Reader Soapbox? It's a blog post that you write, and we publish on the site for others to comment on. Are you a frustrated rapper, eternally overlooked by the local media's fear of hip-hop? Are you a gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered person tired of hiding in the shadows in South Carolina? Are you a Libertarian, eternally unhappy with being viewed as a wacko of the political fringe? Are you a poet who simply must find a place to share an observation you just had about a falling leaf? Tell us. We want to hear from you!

For those of you who haven't been following the progess of the Spartanburg Spark, you might want to visit the site. We've grown a lot since August.

In creating the Spark, I've done a lot of snooping around on other people's blogs. Local people, almost all of them. I've been looking to see if: anyone is already doing something like the Spark; what sorts of things are on people minds here in Spartanburg; what isn't being covered by the local media; and what kind of online culture exists in the area.

What have I learned? Not much, sadly. You see, there's no central blogroll for local blogs, and trying to search for "Spartanburg blogs" isn't exactly a rewarding process. The blogs are out there, I'm sure of it, it's just a matter of finding them.

So, I've started a new website, SparkleCityBlogs.com, which has the stated mission of bringing together all local blogs, regardless of political, religious or social views. It's a glorified blogroll, but I'm hoping it'll be just the thing for people wanting to answer the same questions I began asking only a few days ago about our online community.

If you have a local blog to suggest, please e-mail me at publisher@spartanburgspark.com.

If you've been following the website's development, you'll have noticed that -- roughly over the last week -- it has gone from a placeholder on the internet to being an only half-bad website with a reasonably functioning Events calendar and live music schedule. Slowly, the thing is coming together.

The site "officially" launches -- that is, will be actively promoting itself and no longer rattling on about its development -- in less than a week. Until then, we're still in a beta-test version of things. The layout will be tweaked, new sections will be added, and things will generally be less amateur-looking than they are right now.

If you see anything that needs to be improved, don't hestitate to let us know. Feel free to e-mail your event and show listings to us as publisher@upstatespark.com, or you can MySpace message us.

One thing that we could use more or less immediately is a logo. If any of you know your way around Photoshop/Illustrator, and would be willing to whip us up a logo (it has to say "Spartanburg Spark" and have an electric/sparkler spark-type visual to it) for nothing but a portfolio piece and street-cred, we'd be beyond grateful.

Although we're still a few months away from launching the paper, it's never too early to see what people would like to read about here in Sparkle City. After all, this will ultimately be YOUR paper about YOUR community. We need a little feedback to make it, you know, feel right.

The first thing worth mentioning is whether or not we should delve into news coverage. The Herald isn't exactly everyone's style -- we know that -- but what's it not covering properly that the Spark could? The City? The County? The school board? The police beat? Downtown development?

As far as we've seen, the biggest oversight in local coverage has been in the arts and music scene. Sure, Spartanburg has some great live music, but we need names, people! Ditto for artists, poets, dancers and the rest of the creative set.

Next, we need to get in contact with people who have something to say. You know who I'm talking about -- that guy/girl at the party who has an opinion that just HAS to let everyone know about it. In other words, we'll be looking for columnists.

Of course, this just scratches the surface. We'd like to include things like locally created comic strips, national-level stories with local ties, essays by any number of local writers, a complete resource guide for local events and shows ... the list can really go on and on. But, in order to make it work, we'll also need some ideas from you.

So, holla back at us, Spartanburg. We want to hear what you've got to say.